I guess that why they call them the Blue and White quarters.

by Rick Johansen

Today I have been reminded of that old saying: the pen is mightier than the sword. To lump an old joke at the end, it is also considerably easier to write with!

Writing all day today on my book project has assuaged some of the depression that surged back when I said goodbye to Bristol Rovers. The old black dog is never far away and it doesn’t take much to let him back in the room when my guard has dropped. Saying goodbye to my football club after 42 years was a far bigger, deeper and more emotional experience than I would have thought possible, had I thought of it in the first place. If I had thought about it before, prepared myself for my reaction and those of others, I’d have been all right, or maybe not quite so bad.

It’s been one of the strategies I’ve employed to make my life better. Look ahead to future events and if they are likely to have major impacts, then think through the implications. When I forget, or take my eye of the ball, I pay a price. Bastard black dog.

So today I have been writing, forsaking a beautiful autumnal day’s golf in favour of creating stuff. The depressed brain is a papier mache mess, whirling around in a circle of despair, scratching around for something to do, something at least slightly meaningful and positive. Big fail yesterday. Not so today.

My forthcoming winter trip to Corfu is barely two months away and I am very aware that a substantial part of my book must be written before I go, maybe at least half of it, as well as plans for the other half. I really got flying today, sharp as a tack, despite a careless surfeit of late night red wine into the early hours.

God – I’d love to do this all the time, for a living, even a modest living. When I am working at my writing – and it is work, albeit massively rewarding work – I think that’s what I am here for, even though I know in my heart of hearts that I am only really here because of the accident of my birth. When I write decent stuff, typos and all (!), people seem to enjoy it, react to it, have opinions on it. That was the joy I felt from my Bristol Rovers programme, when someone said they really enjoyed something I had written. I never got physically paid over 12 years other than my free ticket, but it was the culmination of a lifetime’s dream. To take myself away from it, consciously and deliberately, was a self-induced shock. Silly boy?

A divorce is normally for life. You don’t normally resume normal relations with your ex wife and I find it very hard to see how I can remarry that girl in BS7. I really have tried to return the club to what I felt it should be; a unified, united football club where supporters were stakeholders and were valued, other than through pounds and pence and offsetting the losses. A club with a heart and soul, like Bristol Rovers a decade ago.

I am not so stupid or pompous to assume that there is a long line of people at my feet, begging me to carry on. There obviously isn’t, and why should there be? There’s a football team to support, a pre match pint to drink, a pasty to consume before kick off. I was but one of 6000. But some people have asked me to reconsider and I am flattered. I owe it to them to at the very least contemplate and scrutinise their comments and suggestions in the clear light of day.

I am still pretty sure this split is permanent, though. Too many things that will never change would have to change for me to walk back through the door. I may lack certain qualities in life but honesty and loyalty are not two of them. I’ve certainly made mistakes, often big fat blunder mistakes, but I don’t tell lies to justify my actions. And there’s the rub, because others have. Not white lies but big black lies.

For now, my attention is on Greece, looking back on my life in order to look forward. There are other projects on the near horizon which might make my dreams come true, although they will all require bloody hard work. I am open to offers of low paid writing work, that’s for sure.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the traffic on this website too and the messages, some private, some not, sometimes from the most unexpected sources.

I still feel that in life, the term ‘you never made it’ holds true and that’s me. I’ve come back to a point where I can add ‘yet’ to the term. That’s probably as reckless a statement as I have ever made.

Life’s rich pageant, eh?

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